US Army Creates Single Vaccine Effective Against All COVID & SARS Variants

Within weeks, scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research expect to announce that they have developed a vaccine that is effective against COVID-19 and all its variants, even Omicron, as well as from previous SARS-origin viruses that have killed millions of people worldwide.

The achievement is the result of almost two years of work on the virus. The Army lab received its first DNA sequencing of the COVID-19 virus in early 2020. Very early on, Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch decided to focus on making a vaccine that would work against not just the existing strain but all of its potential variants as well.

Walter Reed’s Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine, or SpFN, completed animal trials earlier this year with positive results. Phase 1 of human trials, which tested the vaccine against Omicron and the other variants, wrapped up this month, again with positive results that are undergoing final review, Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, director of Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch, said in an exclusive interview with Defense One.

The next step is seeing how the new pan-coronavirus vaccine interacts with people who were previously vaccinated or previously sick.

This clinical protocol outlines a first-in-human study of the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of different doses of SpFN_1B-06-PL + ALFQ prophylactic vaccine against COVID-19 in healthy adults. The experimental vaccine in this study contains 2 parts: the vaccine (called SpFN_1B-06-PL) and an experimental adjuvant called ALFQ. An adjuvant is a substance added to vaccines that can help to make the vaccine more effective by improving the immune response or causing the immune response to last longer. The experimental vaccine in this study does not contain the virus and cannot cause you to become infected with the COVID-19 disease.